But do I really need to blog?

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If you want to be noticed and visible online (and this is not the time to go “nah – don’t think so”), then first of all you need an effective and optimized website – but let’s say you have that.

How do you then best go about attracting visitors and ultimately clients to your site? Well – the very best way is to have someone else point in your direction and say “they can help you” – as unbiased ambassadors will always beat direct commercials, but the next best thing is to establish yourself as being knowledgeable – so that people seek you out for advice. How to do that? Blogging is an excellent way to get your knowledge in eye-sight of your clients.

The added bonus is that, done correctly, publishing blog articles will earn you the title of “published author” on Google. Happy days! The more valuable articles you share through your blog, the higher you will be in the search results and that’s what you want.

With blogging you increase the chance of attracting attention – as you stand out among the many paid commercials. Blogging allows you to engage with like- minded people, build a relationship and in the world of business hopefully gain a future customer. Imagine the time (and therefore money) it would cost to share your knowledge one-to-one with prospects. Blogging is free advertising. A win-win.

How do you ensure that your blog is being read? Here are my 10 tips to ensure that your blog gets viewed and most importantly read.

1. Make titles as stimulating as possible (think of headlines, what attracts your eye first and what makes you want to read further?)

With the title of your article you draw the reader to you and you stimulate them to click through. The tantalizing title must of course fit in with the article otherwise the reader is disappointed. You can use the following tips when drawing up your blog title.

  • Use emotion
  • Name the problem and the solution
  • Use important keywords
  • Ask a Question
  • Use irony (a little provoke or you can lure your reader out of the tent)

2. Make the article scannable

Make sure your reader can determine at a glance what your blog is about. You do that by choosing a clear structure

  1. Use summaries
  2. Keep the paragraphs and your sentences short (SEO does not like long and fuzzy sentences)
  3. Use subheadings (good for SEO)
  4. Use a striking layout (bold and italicized words)
  5. Use white space (which provides more overview).
  6. Use images

3. Use more than 300 words

Google likes longer articles and valuable information. The longer an article is, the sooner the search engine will return this article in the search results. With a long article, the chances are that there is a lot of valuable information in it.

4. Keep it simple, but do not make it simpler than it is (read: jargon is fun for colleagues but customers cannot always get that much)

As an expert, you know the terms that are often used within your field, but do not sprinkle with them all the time. Find a mode between expert and Jip and Janneke languages. Tip: Before you read it give your blog  to your partner or a friend who is not in your field, and ask them to read to see if they understand everything.

5. Create conversation / interaction

Conversation / interaction is the most important thing you want to create on your blog. Do not just focus on sending your message but help and inform people with your blog. Start a conversation or substantive discussion by asking a question of your reader. Is this clear? Yet? Or do I say something weird now? Agree or disagree? What do you think? etc.

You may have written such a beautiful and interesting article but if no question is asked the only reactions you will get are thumbs and likes.

6. Ask intermediate questions in your blog

Your reader cannot answer questions that you ask. By asking questions in your article, the reader is already in the answer mode. These interim questions lower the threshold to answer the call to action (see point 10) at the end of your article. This increases the chance that your reader leaves a comment or takes action.

7. In addition to knowledge, interesting information and good news, share disappointments and less good news

That makes the image your reader has of you more real. Stories that provide recognition have the most impact. An experience does not necessarily have to be your experience, it can also be someone else’s experience, but you recognize the situation and you can empathize with it. Share your own story, your mistakes, learning moments and your successes. You also lower the threshold for people to respond and contact you. You connect faster with the other person. Just like in real life. What were the moments when you really had a connection with someone?

8. Work in your story from small to large

Start with a small example and work it out. Put it in a context. Make it funny, expand it. You can also divide your story across multiple blogs, but make sure you actually post it if you promise that to your readers. Follow up is important and you also run the risk of not appearing reliably if you do not comply with your agreements.

9. Move in your reader

There is no one type of reader, everyone uses information in a different way. Roughly you could divide them into four types:

  • Passive recipient (29% of people); it has no time to read and only reads headlines.
  • Digital snacker (31% of people); reads everything a bit, all day long. What he or she reads must be especially accessible.
  • Enthusiastic traditional reader (20% of people); this reader reads everything in detail. Reads four newspapers and takes the time.
  • The busy viewer (20% of people); Critical reader looking for background and interpretation, reads various types of channels and forms an opinion on this basis. Does not have a lot of time, so content should be good and fast to read.

(source: https://www.emerce.nl/cc?_r=/research/vier-typen-nieuwsconsumenten-aanpreekt)

10. Always use a ‘Call to action’ (CTA) at the bottom of your blog

With this you ask the reader to take action. For example:

  • ask a question about the content of your blog
  • announce an event
  • offer a product
  • indicate that people can contact you if they have questions.

Finally

I guess you are thinking ‘wow that is a lot of work’  Well yes that’s right it is! But what did you expect? If you want to get and keep the attention of your target audience, then you have to put in the time and effort. The advantage of blogging is (if you do it smartly) that your blog can last for years and thus can always be available and read by  your target audience and attract them to you.

Even I find it  difficult sometimesand that ‘divine inspiration’ is a myth for many people, so I have one last tip for you: Use the creativity and capacity of a pro and spend it.

 

Stand and Deliver, your customers will be mine!

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Upgrade your Customers NOW! Or Someone else WILL.

One of the biggest risks for any business, particularly business software vendors, is the potential loss of customers. Customers are your bread and butter and they are what helps keep your businesses ticking, the lights on and gets you that recurring revenue that helps you survive.

So, if you want to keep hold of those customers then you need to make them feel special. You have to make sure that they are not tempted away by some flash looking ‘dandy highwayman’, who we’re all too scared to mention, who spends lots of cash in grabbing their attention. Especially after so many years of your hard work to build that relationship.

To keep the dandy highwayman at bay, as a software vendor you need to show that you have your customers best interests in mind. When your customer starts to experience a problem, they should turn to you FIRST – even if you aren’t able to directly provide the solution. This though is good as you can help the client select the right product that doesn’t affect their existing solution and supports their infrastructure. This builds the bond and positions you as their trusted advisor.

However, what your customer (and you) may not realise is that maybe their problems can be solved by upgrading to the latest version of their existing solution. Keeping them up to date with the latest technologies is critically important so they understand what is available to them, how they can avoid risks such as not being compatible with other software upgrades and data protection. Because if you aren’t doing this that dandy highwayman will be lurking in the bushes to jump out and just steal them.

With the release of NAV 2018 those customers that are using anything older than the latest release are at risk of going to another reseller for the upgrade or worse still moving away from your product altogether. Your biggest advantage over the dandy highwayman is that you should already understand the customer’s needs. You will be able to advise them what is best for their business. You can also explain the knowledge gaps that other vendors may not be able to fill should they switch, such as moving away from your IP.

You need to think about how you should be informing your customers about what they have available to them and how easy it is for them to upgrade to the latest version when you use QBS Upgrade services. But what makes this even easier is that your customer can spread the cost of that upgrade monthly instead of a big capital investment. With the combination of QBS Upgrade services and the access to lease/loan through QBS Finance there is no reason for them to be on anything other than the latest version.

If you don’t know it by now there is still plenty of potential for you to generate revenue from those customers, especially your legacy customers. That’s all it takes is to spend a little time making your customers aware of the future potential of the business by upgrading to the latest technology. Better you earn that income than the rogue with white striped face who doesn’t care about the customer’s best interests.

So, Stand and deliver stop making those excuses and provide your customers with some extra special services.

If you grew up in the 1980s then you should know to what I refer, if not check this out.

 

Position NAV as stepping stone for more Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ deals

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Since the introduction of the Dynamics 365 Business Edition in the US and Canada late 2016, the position of Dynamics NAV is under pressure! Competitors took the chance to position NAV as an old-fashioned solution and that’s a direct threat to your NAV business!

In this edition of QBS Talks you’ll learn the 7 strong reasons to keep on selling Dynamics NAV to new customers. And new ideas on how to leverage that position, making NAV a safe stepping stone today to Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ in the near future.

This is a Must Attend webinar for business owners and all the people active in sales and marketing!

DIRECTIONS EMEA 2017 business report is available now!

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Never before it was so important for Dynamics partners to understand the directions that Microsoft takes with her Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 business applications in today’s fast changing cloud world!

At DIRECTIONS US in Florida and the EMEA edition in Madrid, Microsoft unfolded some bold ideas to disrupt the market and grow faster. QBS group was in Madrid with a 23 people to hear these plans from first-hand. After the event, we have once again written our unique and well known DIRECTIONS EMEA 2017 business report with a team of 8 authors.

At QBS group, we understand that informing Dynamics partners well is crucial for making the right strategic decisions. That’s why we strive every single day to make “QBS Partners the best-informed Microsoft partners.”

We have been writing business reports on the international Microsoft events since 2004. So we know what we’re doing. This report is part of our ‘around the year’ reporting service that spans all the major events for Dynamics partners: Inspire/WPC, eXtreme 365 and DIRECTIONS.

What you can expect?

This unique report features broad, insightful and independent business reporting on the happenings at DIRECTIONS EMEA 2017. The report, which consists of 51 pages of need-to-know information, is bought and used by leading Dynamics partners from all over the world.

These partners use the report among others to:

  • Inform all their colleagues who did not visit the event
  • Improve their marketing and sales pitches
  • Update the content on their websites

 

What do Dynamics partners say about these reports?

This is what some of your colleague partners say about our reports:

  • “We are a loyal purchaser of these business reports. Where in the world can you find a solid, structured and well-informed second opinion for so little money? We always discuss the report in our board meeting. QBS helps us to stay alert!”
  • “This is a great report service! It contains lots of background information that helps us better understand how to translate Microsoft’s strategies to our daily business.”
  • “I’ve only recently started in the Dynamics channel. Thanks to the QBS reports I was up to date in no time of the various Microsoft strategies, her product policies and the trends in the Dynamics partner channel”

The average satisfaction score for this report over the last 5 years was 8,6 on a 1 to 10 scale.

Taste first?
To get a good idea of what you can expect from our DIRECTIONS EMEA 2017 Business Report, you can now download the 2016 edition for free.

Order your copy now!

Partners of QBS group receive this report at no additional cost, as it is part of their QBS membership. For non-QBS Microsoft partners, the report is available for only Euro 400 exclusive of VAT per partner company.

Do you want to know all about Microsoft’s plans with Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ and the opportunities these solutions create for your business? Then order your copy today!

As a Microsoft Dynamics professional, can you afford to miss on this important information?

Business Edition is off – long live Tenerife!

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Our team is just getting back from Directions in Madrid. It was a remarkable event in many aspects. First it has been the 10th anniversary of Directions and fact that it has been now with more than 2.000 attendees is not just a testament to the success of Directions, but also to the momentum this community of partners have built.

At same time, Directions this year signaled a significant step in the product strategy for NAV and the SMB agenda for Dynamics. While Microsoft gave up on having two editions of Dynamics 365, by basically no longer launching the Dynamics 365 Business Edition, it become clear that the NAV platform remains an important pillar to the Dynamics 365 strategy. This statement has been doubted in weeks before, after some announcements that could have led partners to believe that NAV becomes almost legacy. But if anything, no one should have any doubt that NAV will stay platform of choice for customers that want to have a suite of business process capabilities, delivered on-prem or through cloud.

That is an important message, the capabilities and in fact the code base is 100% identical, regardless if you want to deploy on-prem or cloud. So the promise, that your customers can migrate to cloud in their terms, is not just a promise. And you can then add capabilities as you go, being it in sales, marketing or field service or even human talent. Since all Dynamics applications, including next version of NAV, code name Tenerife, will use the Common Data Service, they can seamlessly work together.

As QBS Group, we extend this agenda to you, we serve you and your business regardless if you want to deploy your solution for your customers on-prem or of you want to offer it through private or public cloud. We have the trainings and programs in place to help you migrate your solution to the Tenerife platform, we will bring you new customer prospects through our Take-the-Lead program, create new capacity in your technical teams with migrations service or help you build your strategy around your all up business or marketing wih our individual workshops. In any case we invite you to talk to us about your future, either in one of our upcoming QBShares, through your local QBS teams or by contacting me or any of our staff. Finally in case you want to know more about what main themes were discussed at Directions this year, we recommend that you listen to the recoding of our recent webinar “HOT News from Directions EMEA” and keep an eye out for our Directions business report, that provides you with all important insights.

Are you using marketing as a panic button?

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If you are, you are definitely not alone. This is a very natural reaction when the order books are empty and your pipeline is dryer than the Kalahari desert during a dry spell… you panic!

 

And a natural place to run to in panic is to marketing – they must be able to do some kind of magic trick that makes new customers appear – almost like out of the blue – right? And you are also willing to turn up that discount lever to make those customers sign sooner rather than later.

We’ve all been there – using marketing as a kind of fire extinguisher to that burning pain of a hurting business, making everybody from marketing to sales frantically busy with getting that urgent direct mail out – and the entire company getting involved in that “all hands on deck” calling day, where no stone is left unturned.

The fact is – that all the while this hectic activity is taking place – chances are, the business is slowly recuperating – not as a result of the instant activity – but more likely because seeds were planted months ago, that is then coming to realization. So while everybody goes “phew – we kept the business a float with our quick thinking” – all people think to themselves “how on earth did that happen?”. Because that’s what marketing is all about: that long term haul, intelligently considering the right time and audience for the right messages, that will make customers come to realize their needs and pains – and slowly but surely turn to you for advice. The best approach is rarely to just bulldozer the market.

“Well – but this way we get to pick the low hanging fruits” the counter argument normally goes….

And I know the term “low hanging fruits” is a much loved term by all business owners – because who doesn’t just want to stroll around, picking those low hanging fruits? But who says you can’t pick those fruits while at the same time preparing the soil for the long term growth and crop?

Most of us agree to the fact that customers are on a buying journey (see former QBS article on buying journey here) – so how come we insist on a selling “moment”?

Marketing takes time and effort – and it begins with you knowing your own business. Answering these 3 big questions:

  1. Where are you today?
    (who are your customers, and what does your product solve with customers are some of the sub questions here that are painfully important to understand)
  2. What are you doing right now?
    (is your website performing as it should, are you active on social media, have you activated any campaign automations…or are you still relying on your sales people finding their own next potential customer themelves?)
  3. Where do you want your company to go?
    (picture your company in 2,5,10 years’ time – where do you want to be?)

Can bring you the insight needed in order to come to the right decisions around marketing for your business that supports your strategic goals – not just the one-off hit’n’run activity of a panicking organisation. Invite the important stakeholders in your company and do a thorough strategy workshop on marketing for your business – this way all the people that need to get behind the marketing strategy gets heard – and you get a concrete plan to work from. See example of workshop agenda here for inspiration.

 

Having a thoroughly worked through marketing plan in place that supports your long term strategy will also make it possible for you to avoid those situations where you get all hyped up about the next big trend within marketing – that one thing that everybody tells you that you must adopt or die… Because if this new hot trend doesn’t support your strategic goals, then it’s probably not suitable for you to pick up – hot trend or not. (read more in this article about why hot trends should not be followed blindly). Investing the time to do this will pay off in so many ways – you will not be spending marketing budget blindly, and you will be able to adjust, if you don’t see the results that you’ve identified in plan coming in – because you know what you are doing – and why.

Then – if you have done the hard work of considering your strategy for marketing – and set in place the appropriate activities to support your business in the long run – then there’s always room for that occasional panic action, that we all know can’t be avoided every once in a while….

If you need help to kickstart this process or to facilitate it – get in touch with QBS group – we have long term expertise in helping our partners reflect on their business and their marketing strategy – resulting in concrete executable marketing plans. Send a mail to marketing@qbsgroup.com – and we will get back to you right away.

PS. This applies also in part for businesses that targets customers with commodity items, though here you might argue that short term marketing activities at times have their purpose, as you have shorter sales cycles and shorter life cycles of products. But in the discipline of selling business process solutions, short term marketing is never best path.

Get yourself a niche, in order to be successful

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At QBS group we believe that our partners deserve the best; the best support, the best software and the best stories. This time we have asked one of our UK partners Elite Dynamics to share their thoughts and experiences with you on their journey to the cloud. On a rainy afternoon we spoke with Jamaine Campbell and asked him what he would suggest others who want to start their cloud business.

Jamaine Campbell on Elite Dynamics

We started Elite Dynamics back in November 2015. Before that I was already working as a Sales & Marketing Manager, Implementation support for a NAV bases vertical for the UK Caravan & holiday park- industry. In the UK alone there are approximately 4000 of these parks. As many of them are quite small the large investment for a full on-premise NAV suite surely narrowed the potential market.  I already wished to start the deployment of this software in an app, but the MD did not share my vision, so I set up a team with like-minded people who understood that the market is shifting. We changed the way we deploy our solutions and we can rely on Azure infrastructure services via QBS, which allows us to focus on the software components.

In order to have our solution implemented in more organisations than my previous employer did in the previous ten years, the answer was a simple rapid deployment of both the database, implementation but equally the back-end servers and associated services. How do we remove the CAPEX costs? The answer is simple: put it in the cloud! Our future is not in concentrating on such large implementations, but in deploying the same solution over and over again.

Our customers

We currently have 9 customers in both the UK as well as Canada, we can tackle both the lengthier on- premise implementations as well as the fast cloud implementations. Over half of our current customers use our solution in the cloud. We expect this to be a larger percentage in the future.

We distinguish between three types of customers: the large ones who own their own IT department, have the CAPEX budget to invest in the terminal servers, SQL servers, the hardware, etc. and often have a quite complex network which involves multiple applications that need to be integrated. They will usually go for the on-premise solution, because they have the infrastructure in place, support and they have the IT budget.

The second type of customers could be easily as large, but they do not have the IT budget nor the infrastructure in place, nor do they wish to put that amount of money into it. They are happy to have the software solution delivered to them as a pure app. In December 2015 we already had a request from a customer in Canada and within 1 day we managed to spin their server up. In a day we got them from zero to deployment and having their database up and running.

The third type of customer we identify is a multi-tenanted environment, the smaller of the vacation and caravan parks. They just want an affordable “off-the-shelf” solution, a pure hosted service. Elite Dynamics is pioneering with this multi-tenant environments.

Find yourself a niche market

By focusing on a specific industry it allows you to understand the requirements of that industry, to better understand your barriers, your constraints but also your USP’s. Having a niche market is surely helping us to gain such a great market position in a short period of time.

We still see many partners who focus on everything, but we believe actually finding and fully grasping a niche market is the way forward.

We still see many partners who focus on everything, but we believe actually finding and fully grasping a niche market is the way forward. It surely helps if no competitors have selected this market yet and if there is a budget to be spent on your solution. After the UK market we are also looking at other native English speaking areas, such as Canada, United States and New Zealand.

Removing the cost of infrastructure

If you are looking for a quick implementation at a lower entry point, you need to remove the cost of infrastructure: in many cases the cost of infrastructure can be greater than the Dynamics NAV and server licenses. In a marketspace that is already sensitive to price, doubling the cost is not an option. The whole NAV environment is a lot more technical then it was 10 years ago, also adding additional costs for support. Remove the requirements, skills and knowledge around the infrastructure.  Let that whole 24/7 uptime become somebody else’s problem, as well as the whole SQL licensing part and focus on delivering a NAV application as an app.

Take the emotions out of it

When moving from on-premise to cloud, you have to make sure you take the emotions out of it. ERP is all about emotion and on-premise is well established over decades. It somehow acts as a “comfort blanket”. People prefer to have 50 servers in a room over having 1000 servers in a well secured and temperature-controlled area.

For us moving to a cloud-based model was a logical step.  Out of the 4000 caravan and holiday parks only 20 could afford the investment in hardware, software and support that is needed in an on- premise situation.

Some final words

We feel we have a responsibility to our staff, our customers as well as to ourselves to do the right thing. In our vision we want to stay focused on quality over quantity and focus on what we do best. We believe this will help us grow and be the dominant player in the UK market in a few years as well as open up the international market of caravan and holiday parks.  We could not have done this without the help of QBS and in our case the help of Andy De Rosa, our Channel Manager. He is there for us when we need him. Having a trusted partner such as QBS surely helps us a lot.

Want to become successful in the cloud with Dynamics 365?
Start now with the Dynamics 365 Acceleration Program.

How to survive Mobilegeddon?

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On the 21st of April 2015, Google released a major update that might have a huge impact on the mobile visibility of your website. This update has now been renamed in ‘Mobilegeddon’. If your website receives a lot of mobile search traffic via Google search and your site is not suitable for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, this search traffic could decrease.

What is a mobile friendly website?

Your website is ‘mobile friendly’, when your pages are easy to read and easy to navigate, without a need to zoom in or to flip your device.

How important are these visitors who visit your site via a mobile device?

Of course, as owner of the website, you are the only one who can give the right answer. But there is a clear trend that mobile usage is substantially growing.

In the Netherlands there are as many smartphone as laptop users and the number of people with a tablet equals the number of people with a desktop computer. In the United States 94% of the people search via the smartphone. And 77% of all mobile searches is carried out at home or at work, thus in places where probably also desktop computers are present.

Google rates ‘mobile’ so important, that ‘mobile friendly’ is now included in the search results.

What should you do now?

Step 1 Test your website on mobile friendliness

If you want to be sure your website is mobile friendly, check your site with the mobile-friendly test of Google.

Step 2 Determine the impact of the “Mobilegeddon” update on your mobile traffic.

If your website doesn’t pass this test, determine how big the impact is on the number of visitors to your website.

Google Analytics lets you see the impact of organic search traffic via mobile devices in the period before and after the 21st of April. Now you can determine if this impact justifies an investment in for example a responsive website.

NOTE: If you want to know how to generate this insight via Google Analytics, contact QBS group.

Step 3: Make your website mobile friendly

If you decide that you should invest in a mobile friendly website, you can choose from four strategies, depending on your budget and degree of urgency:

  1. Convert your existing desktop website into a responsive version.
  2. Launch a mobile site next to your existing desktop website.
  3. Replace your existing website entirely with a new, sustainable, adaptive or responsive website.
  4. Make your most important pages responsive first.

Decide how your organisation and your visitors experience a mobile site.
Do they see mobile as an extension of the regular website or is mobile an important starting point?
Is it all about sales and conversion or do you just want to inform your visitors?

Probably, you are already informed about this by your web builder and maybe you have already received several offers for the development of a new website.

Important in determining the right choices, decide what you want to achieve with your mobile site. What is your primary goal and how will this mobile website contribute to achieving this goal?